1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the processing of plantains.
2. Description of the Related Art
Traditionally bananas and plantains have been a stable food item in most South American families. This fruit has been cooked in numerous ways. One of them involves frying slices of green plantains. Usually, the green plantains are peeled, cut in slices, the slices are smashed against a flat surface and then fried. Depending on how thick the slice is, how well it was smashed and the amount of time it was fried will determine how crispy the final product is. It is a common source of complaints from those who consume these food items that the internal parts are soggy and not well cooked.
At the same time all of the plantains consumed in the United States comes from other countries mostly Latin American countries and it is quite desirable to minimize the transportation cost by eliminating the non-edible parts of the plantain. Also, the storage space required will be reduced facilitating the logistics involved.
There have been a number of banana pealing machines designed such as U.S. Pat. No. 4,446,782 issued to Black in 1984 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,627,011 issued to Pond. However, none of these disclosures describe the process disclosed herein or the article produced by this process.
Other patents describing the closest subject matter provide for a number of more or less complicated features that fail to solve the problem in an efficient and economical way. None of these patents suggest the novel features of the present invention.